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    Gas Wars

    Jack Butcher

    500 artworks, 500 remaining

    Status:

    UPCOMING

    RELEASE: Sep 17, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

    T-MINUS: XX

    LEGEND:

    SURVIVED

    CRASHED

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    INSTRUCTIONS: HOVER COORDINATE TO VIEW

    Selected Image

    ARTWORK:

    Simulation Sample

    STATUS:

    Survived

    Mint Mechanics

    Each token ID represents its corresponding damage level and price point. Choose any available position to generate your simulation.

    The interface displays all collector choices in real time, creating a visual map of market behavior during the 500-second mint window.

    STATUS: UPCOMING

    T-MINUS: XX

    RELEASE: Sep 17, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

    ARTWORKS, 500 REMAINING

    RANGE: 000-499

    DAMAGE RISK: ESCALATING

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    Gas Wars
    Phase 1: Survive

    Artwork:

    Gas Wars #0

    Sale:

    Auction

    Damage Risk:

    None

    Starting Price:

    $0

    Date:

    Sep 16, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

    Simulation Zero, traditionally reserved as an artist mint, will be sold publicly via a 24-hour zero reserve auction. Any bid received in the final 5 minutes will extend the auction by 5 minutes.

    Phase 2: Simulate

    Artwork:

    Gas Wars #1-499

    Sale:

    Fixed Price

    Damage Risk:

    Escalating

    Starting Price:

    $1 - $499

    Date:

    Sep 17, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

    Gas Wars is a networked generative artwork inspired by the concept of Survivorship Bias, popularized during WW2 by statistician Abraham Wald.

    Wald observed that bullet holes in returning aircraft showed where planes could survive damage, not where they needed protection.

    The missing planes told the real story.

    Gas Wars creates 500 combat simulations priced linearly from $0 to $499, each representing the cost per bullet fired at an aircraft.

    Simulation Zero is sold via a no reserve auction, beginning 24 hours prior.

    The remaining 499 simulations are available for 500 seconds only.

    Early simulations fire fewer bullets and face better survival odds than more expensive late scenarios. But expensive simulations reveal more information about destruction patterns.

    Low prices may trigger network congestion, the "Gas Wars" that defined early Art Blocks Curated releases.

    The algorithm generates aircraft that may emerge damaged, destroyed, or absent entirely. Expensive pieces that face hundreds of bullets provide the richest data about vulnerability, even as they're least likely to survive.

    Collectors may race for perceived safety while high-information tokens with poor survival odds remain unclaimed.

    The economic mechanics of Gas Wars create their own survivorship bias.

    This sale features variable pricing based on simulation number, with each simulation priced at $1 per shot fired. Lower simulation numbers have lower price and lower risk of damage, while higher simulation numbers have higher price and higher risk of damage. Each wallet is limited to one simulation purchase. The sale concludes after 500 seconds, with any available simulation purchasable in any order during this window. Any simulation not purchased at the conclusion of the 500 second window will be permanently destroyed.

    Project: Gas Wars

    Status: UPCOMING

    Field Notes Background
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    Jack Butcher portrait
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    Jack Butcher

    B. 1988 in Swindon, England

    Lives and works in Nashville, USA

    Jack Butcher is the founder of Visualize Value. He makes work about markets, scarcity, and consensus, examining how value emerges, circulates, and persists in networked culture.

    Learn more

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    Article thumbnail for: Coming to Art Blocks Curated: Gas Wars by Jack Butcher

    NEWS

    Coming to Art Blocks Curated: Gas Wars by Jack Butcher

    Gas Wars marks the second to last Curated release in the Art Blocks 500, our foundational collection of on-chain generative art from 2020-2025.

    Learn more

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